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From: Peter Simm Last year, the Barn's owner was charged with "permitting disorderly conduct", an alleged violation of regulations under the Liquor Licence Act. The supposed disorderly conduct was the mere nudity at TNT!MEN dances at the Barn in March 2000 and again in April 2000. Several months ago, the Barn's lawyer, Andrew Czernik, scheduled a full-day trial of the March 2000 charge. It was to be held today (June 1st) in Old City Hall's Courtroom "N" (as in naked nancy-boys). Andrew invited me to serve as co-counsel. Somehow, things got lost in the system. Instead of being reserved exclusively for the contemplated trial, Courtroom "N" also ended up being the venue for a long list of other matters today. More importantly, the court filing system also couldn't locate the official paperwork for the charge arising from the March 2000 dance. Without a copy of the summons, the judge recognized that he had no jurisdiction to proceed with a trial of the charge. The March 2000 charge has thus legally vanished, and will not be the basis for any future trial. In that sense, today was a technical victory. However, because there was no ruling on the merits of the case, there is still no judicial decision as to whether "disorderly conduct" includes mere nudity (i.e. nudity that, in the specific circumstances, doesn't disturb anyone or cause any disruption). This means that we are no closer to having naked TNT!MEN events restored at the Barn or at any other licenced venue. Scheduling of the trial of the April 2000 charge was set today. It will be held on Friday, September 14th. We expect that the interpretation of "disorderly conduct" will finally be addressed then. -- Peter Simm |
It was a disappointing morning for TNT!MEN, though a nice one for the Barn. As you can see in the letter from Peter Simm, the charges arising from our March 25th, 2000 naked dance have evaporated due to missing paperwork. The later charges, which were placed against the Barn this past February in relation to our naked dance on April 29th, 2000 are still before the courts, and are essentially the same. However, the trial today was supposed to deal with those from the March dance. We were hoping they would be dealt with today, and the later charges tossed out at the same time. We were disappointed.
So now we'll have to wait until mid-September in order to have the courts tells the police that dancing nude is NOT disorderly!
Today seemed to be Gay Day in court: also being dealt with were cases against the Amazon Restaurant (perhaps not queer but it sounds like it should be!), Sodom and Gommorah Inc. (what do they sell??), and our very own Black Eagle!
It seems that on April 22nd, 2000, the Black Eagle was visited by a middle-aged and rather plain-looking plain-clothes copper from 52 Division, who admitted to being a regular visitor to the bar over the last four years, presumably on duty, but one can never be certain. This fellow told the court that on that night he spied three fellows upstairs passing what he assumed to be a joint between them, despite the posted signs prohibiting sex and drugs on the premises. Standing at the top of the stairs was a fellow he didn't recognise, dressed in dark clothing, who wasn't drinking a beer, and who seemed to be watching the people there. At the back of the upper deck was standing another fellow in similar attire, also unknown to the cop.
Despite his observations of the leather and uniform scene, and the Black Eagle in particular, the copper assumed these fellows must have been part of the bar's security team. He didn't actually ask any of the staff if this were so.
Later that night, after the leaving the bar, this fellow apparently told a collegue of his what he thought he saw, and that colleague, some months later, presented the Black Eagle with a summons for permitting disorderly conduct, a violation of the liquor license act.
Notice that the cop did NOT charge the individuals who were alleged to be smoking an illegal substance. He did NOT seize the suspected joint. He didn't tell the bar about what he saw. He didn't do anything to investigate what measures the bar was taking to prevent illegal acts. Instead he told a pal who decided to harass the Black Eagle with a nuisance liquor license violation.
This is how the judge saw it. In summarising, with what might have been a subtle smile on his face, the judge said, "Maybe naked dancing or sex acts are disorderly, but not smoking narcotics." The Black Eagle was found not guilty. As a result, the cops lost at least part of their favourite means of enforcing their own personal code of "morality", which is the threat of charging the bar with a liquor license violation.